From Raw to Ready: Efficient Data Ingestion and Modeling

We're returning in October with a great Meetup hosted by **Just Eat Takeaway.com**, focused on Data ingestion and modeling !

We will have two talks on our agenda:

First talk: Now Everyone Can Become a Data Engineer - Julian Alves
Data teams don't appear fully formed — they emerge from scrappy scripts, cron jobs, and questions like "can you pull that data?". I started as a software engineer, moved into platform work, and somehow ended up building data pipelines — and realized this space needs a lot of help. In this talk, I'll share what I've learned across software, platform, and data engineering: how data teams actually start, why everyone eventually "does data," and the common traps (ad-hoc ETL, tools, unclear ownership). Then I'll show a practical path that lets any developer contribute safely: lightweight code, clear interfaces, and local dev thinking. We'll qucikly show how dlt from dltHub works, highlighting how it lowers the barrier to shipping reliable pipelines with Python.

Julian Alves is a freelance engineer specializing in infrastructure, data, and software. He has helped companies like WeTransfer, Tikkie, and Bitvavo build data platforms that accelerate development. He contributes to the dlt Python library and actively advocates for OpenSource as the way forward.

Second talk: Mental models - Devdas Bhagat
As we move into a world with even more rapid change, we run into trouble keeping up. Mental models are a way to frame your thinking, to identify patterns and possibly help improve communication (Quick anyone, what is DevOps? What is AI?). Using the wrong mental models can be frustrating, while using the right ones leaves you in a state of flow. This talk will help you in naming some of the more common models, and selecting between models. You will walk away with different perspectives on how to think about and solve problems. This talk will be an introduction to mental models, and how to use them to design better systems.

Devdas Bhagat is a staff engineer at Just Eat Takeaway.com with over two decades of experience in the field. He has been a sysadmin, a developer, a network engineer, a DBA and a manager.

Timeline:

• 18.00 – Walk-in/Doors open 🚪
• 18.15 – Food & Drinks 🍕🥤☕️
• 18.30 – Welcome by **Just Eat Takeaway.com & Amsterdam.dev**
• 18.45 – Now Everyone Can Become a Data Engineer - Julian Alves 🎤
• 19.15 – Break 🥤🚽
• 19:30 – Mental Models - Devdas Bhagat 🎤
• 20:00 – Talk to other people 🙋🗣+ Lighting talks 💡🌩️
• 21:00 – Time is up! See you next time. 👋

Photography/Video consent:
Please be informed that we'll be taking pictures during the event, let us know if you don't want to be filmed/photographed.